Adam Byram is a software developer in Oak Ridge, TN. These days, he's making our healthcare system better at his day job and experimenting with VR/AR in his free time. You can get in touch via Twitter or Google+.

Published

TWIL – 2016 Week 20

This Week I Learned, TWIL, is a weekly series of posts where I collect any interesting bits I ran across in the previous week.

Technology

ng-conf Keynote
Great overview of everything the Angular team is working on for version 2 now that it’s officially in RC status. Lots of good stuff coming very soon.

Playing with TensorFlow on Windows
Scott Hanselman uses the new Bash on Windows feature (which is only in the preview Windows 10 builds at the moment) to demo how you can run a *nix only tool like TensorFlow on Windows with no changes. It’s impressive that it works as smoothly as it does.

An Introduction to Microservices, Part 1
Most of the software I’ve worked on throughout my career has been built as a big monolithic blob of bits. I like the idea of “microservices” and thought it’d time to start reading up a bit more on how people actually implement them. This felt like a decent higher level overview. The code bits are in Node.js.

Health

2 Keto Dudes – Show 12 – Cancer
An interesting discussion about how a keto eating may help slow cancer progression. Mark Miller is on the show talking about how he thinks keto helped while he was being treated for cancer.

Career

The Software Engineer’s Guide to Ditching Your Resume
I’ve been intrigued by watching some local developer’s job hunt stories unfold happened to run across this article this week. It’s a long article, but it essentially boils down to making a name for youself through speaking, writing (blogging & actual books), speaking, and getting good at networking. All very reasonable suggestions if you want to be more than just another resume. The downside is a lot of this would be really hard to do for someone just starting out.

Life

Treat The Information You Consume Like the Food you Put into Your Body
I was hoping there was as little more substance to this article than there is, but even so, I like the idea that not every tidbit of information we consume is actually good for us. Having a toddler has made me more mindful of my time, but I still spend way too much time reading Facebook/Twitter/Slack.

Fun

YouTube – Insane 360 video of close-range tornado near Wray, CO yesterday!
I watched this in my Oculus Rift (playing the video via Virtual Desktop) and it’s crazy. Even though 360 video isn’t the best resolution, this is definitely amazing to watch. The camera is mounted on top of their vehicle, so it’s like you’re strapped in a chair on top of the car as they chase a tornado. They get really close to the twister a couple of times.

TensorFlow – MNIST For ML Beginners
I got TensorFlow installed and running on my Mac, but quickly realized I had no idea how to actually use it beyond the basic apps they give you to test your install. This was a great overview of one way to do image recognition in TensorFlow explained from a beginner (relative to machine learning) perspective.

Easy Steps To Better Icon Design
I’ve been working on a logo for a new side project on mine and found lots of good points in this article. I’m not a designer and don’t expect to become one, but, I do enjoy trying to level up my skills in that area.

Adam Byram is a software developer in Oak Ridge, TN. These days, he's making our healthcare system better at his day job and experimenting with VR/AR in his free time. You can get in touch via Twitter or Google+.